"Corrosive"

Modern Love

Artists:

"Corrosive" heralds Drop the Vowels, the oncoming album from Andy Stott and Demdike Stare member Miles Whitaker's Millie & Andrea project. It arrives on the heels of the surprisingly trap-y aperitif "Stage 2", darkening that track's palate and offering up a Frankenstein monster of tittering trap hi-hats and drum'n'bass breaks. The track simmers in a dark ambience, with rays of prickling synthesizer peeking out between storms of rhythm. "Corrosive"'s vital, thick humidity portends the downpours, as heavy as they are sudden. The track's structure—which moves from a careful stir to frenetic assault and back again—is confusing at first, but ultimately serves as the track's engine, whipping between extremes but stopping short of building to any kind of easy climax. It's an arresting piece, one that pays lip service to genre conventions—both old and new—just to show how thoroughly those conventions are going to be trampled.